Doc Love: Being “Just Friends”

This week’s question comes from a guy who doesn’t understand how to be “just friends” with the woman he’s living with.

reader’s question

Hey Doc,

I met Shyla through an online dating service. She is very attractive, in her late 30s and we got along great from the beginning. She’d just lost her job and wanted me to move in with her and her sons. When I agreed, she said that it would be just as friends. She helped me get a new checking account (because of my credit problems her name has to be on it), she added me to her cell phone account, we have been on vacation four or five times together, and we have even been romantic together a couple of times, if you catch my drift.

then things changed…

Anyway, we continued to get along well until just recently. What’s happened is that I feel like I’ve gotten extremely close to Shyla, and now she says that I’m smothering her even though I knew our relationship was supposed to be just a friendly thing, never anything more.

This sort of squabbling has been going on for three months now. She has booked another vacation for her youngest son and us. My question is this: Does Shyla really want me to back off and be just a friend, or is this a way to get me to move out of her life? I don’t really want to move on, Doc, but I don’t want to be in an uncomfortable place either. I know that it’s hard for you to give answers to questions when you’re only hearing one side of the story, but what I desperately need is an opinion from a coach. I hope you can help me. Thanks.

Kam - who wonders if he moved in too fast

doc love’s answer

Hi Kam,

Whoa. Hold it right here, guy. Let me make sure I’ve got this right. You moved in with a complete stranger who you’re attracted to, and who told you up front that it was going to be nothing but a non-romantic relationship, and now you want more than that. Do you realize what you’re saying here? Apparently you don’t, because you went right ahead and moved in with this babe. Kam, let me ask you this question: If I told you to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, would you do it?

But after Shyla, who must have been really bored a couple of nights, got romantic with you, you were suckered in by the idea of having her as your girlfriend and now you’re totally gone over her. You never quite swallowed the idea that she was just looking for a buddy, a vacation escort and a substitute daddy for her kids. And that’s the problem with this scenario. Kam, we don’t care how close you feel to this woman. If you know anything whatsoever about my principles — and it sounds from what you’re telling me here that you’re clueless — all we care about is how extremely close Shyla feels to you. And like my cousin Sal “The Fish” Love says, “She feels so close to you that she’s begging you not to smother her to death!”